I'm going to be away for a while on personal matters, but thought I should do something for you guys before I did. I wrote this at 2am after being up for 52 hours and with a blood-to-red-bull ratio of about 50%. I haven't proofread it, and can't remember what it's about,but from the title it seems cool and I have a plane to catch. Have fun.
Ladies and gentlemen, today is the day of reckoning. Today is the end of oppression, the end of fear. Today is the day of great deeds of which songs will be sung and women will swoon. It?s that kind of motherfucking day, bitches, and I stand ready to seize it like a fistful of diamonds lodged in the cleavage of some heathen goddess. Big diamonds.
Today, I defeat the bird.
It began so long ago it is already fading from my memory like so much morning fog (About three days), when mighty beasts strode the earth and I was hanging out my washing. In my home, my castle, my fort, my lab, my pad, my hizzle, my very place of sleepitude and holder of my beverages, I was attacked. It was a cowardly strike, one at the back of my unprotected head and my utterly awesome hair. From above the assassin descended, on wings of hellfire and probably wielding a halberd or wave motion cannon. All I felt was the impact and my world went black. I was disoriented, confused, but his first strike was but a glancing blow. It left me open, however, to further crippling combinations. Nipping, clacking jaws surrounded me and all I could see were the hellish black wings and flashing white death of my foe.
Sephiroth.
That was my first thought, as I ran screaming towards the door of my house, expecting any second to be cleaved from head to groin by a sword capable of experiencing three timezones at once. The teasing strikes kept coming, my silent killer intent on pursuing me to the ends of the earth, or at least my laundry door. I just kept telling myself this wasn?t happening as I ran for it, screaming as I burst through the screen.
I lay whimpering on the cold tiles for hours. I spent the rest of the day eating ?triplenutty? ice-cream and listening to ABBA, pretending it had never happened and taking long showers that never seemed to make me clean. But when I let my guard down... in the darkness... I wept.
After years of intensive physical recovery, I was able to walk again, and I cautiously stepped out into a world that had passed me by. So many things still confuse me; so many things that people have come to take for granted. New phrases and terms had sprung up around me, like ?put some pants on? and ?bring back my baby?, and I struggled to return to my old, normal life. I might have made it, too, if I hadn?t run into the very creature that had ruined me.
He was sitting in a tree, and I knew it was he from the smug smile on the lips he didn?t have and the way he fixed his evil eyes upon me; Magpie. He was both black and white, signifying that his power was above that of good, evil, racism and road crossings. Like the Zebra and Rorshach, he was a murderous fiend instilled with only his sick integrity and the ability to kill all who questioned it. Around him, the very air shimmered with the force of his hatred. I could hear faint screaming from the edges of reality. Also, his shadow was the shadow of Hitler if Hitler had been a bird.
Do you know what you get if you do an image search on any combination of the words ?Hitler?, ?Magpie?, ?Evil? and ?Satanic?? You get the same results as you do for just ?Magpie?. My antivirus fired up upon doing the search and asked ?Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, really??. The only clickable options on that warning window were in Latin... and projected out of the screen. My peripherals tried to claw their way out of the computer when I clicked on the one that seemed affirmative.
Anyway, I fled back inside as he flexed his mighty wings.
SURPRISE, WHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Look at that. Look at it. That person is on a bike, wearing a helmet. That person is straddling an invention of steel and rubber designed to make her faster than any puny normal meatbag can run, and is wearing body armour designed to keep her alive through being spanked in the head with the road. Do you know how much that Magpie cares? None, that?s what; it cares less than you do for a mere ant. That bird is flying right past her to stare in her face and deliver a silent ultimatum. Surrender, says the bird, or I will break you. And it could, too. That woman doesn?t know it, but she is now carrying the antichrist.
This was my foe, the beast that loomed over my dwelling like some kind of vengeful god, watching my every move and allowing my terror to build. I made my decision, my choice, I chose my path; I would never again leave the house. It was a simple plan, but one I felt was my only option at the time. I had enough food to survive until the fungus growing on the leftovers became abundant enough to sustain me, and through the careful use of a Tupperware tub on a stick, I could gather water from the rain. By selling organs over Ebay, I could keep my internet and power running, and by playing a naked night elf female I could get someone as desperate as myself to pay for my WoW habit, a Sugar-Gnome.
I had adapted to my new life of terror.
But the bird was not content with taking my pride, my money and my ability to sustain an erection. It had to take my salvaged sense of security, and prove that stone and steel were no barrier to its winged and terrible madness. It looked down upon my agoraphobic torment and decided ?I zink he ?az yet to Underztand ze troo meaning of ze Fear. Lulz?. In my mind, he then spat on a picture of my mother he had stolen and rick-rolled the pope.
The day of his next attack was a day like any other. I got up, checked the bear traps in my windows were all active and scraped some fungus off the walls to eat, before settling down to whoring my pixellated night-elf booty out for play-time. I had all but forgotten life before this; it was a distant and painful memory. That?s when it happened: I was walking back through my kitchen, munching on a mutated sandwich, when I noticed something horrific; My Door Was Open. The screen and glass doors were thrown wide apart for any hellish demon to fly inside. I spun and ducked, shielding my head, as I ran towards my computer to twitter ?HEEEELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEE? (I usually try to use all 140 characters, but I was pressed for time), only to find the bird before me, it had made no effort to attack, preferring to watch me run around like a dick.
It mocked my panic, just standing there patiently and allowing the primal terror to build in my gullet. Yeah, it said, I have wings... but right now I?m going to mess you up from down here on the ground. Around it, shadows deepened and eldritch terrors gibbered at this weak universe from their twisted demonic realm. We locked eyes for a while, me and the bird, and it turned its head from side to side to stare at me with its horrible red eyes. But... it didn?t seem angry. In its simple face and beak I saw only curiosity and incomprehension. Was I wrong? Had I mistaken this bird for a horror it was not?
Had I been so eager to see a monster, I had... become the monster myself?
It was then, looking into the eyes of the beast, that I realized that it was... merely a creature. I had feared it, but it looked upon me with the same fear and respect that I gave to the Magpi- ?Yooorrr Sooolll IIYYSS MIIINEE? Screamed the bird, contorting it?s throat through sheer willpower to speak in a twisted mockery of the tongue of man. It cackled, it?s laughing the horrible fusion of bird-cry and the kind of demonic guffaw that would make the Joker take a step back. ?I WYL CONNSSUMMEEE YOOURRR FLESSHH? It howled, leaping at me with a flying side-kick, striking me in the face with a clawed foot, sending me flying into the wall.
I ran from the whirling, feathered dervish as it charged down the hall after me, screaming lines from various works of horror fiction and making slitting motions across its throat. I barricaded myself in the toilet, and held my breath as it delivered more perfect kung-fu blows to the door, shaking the hinges. I heard demonic chanting from outside, and then a fireball exploded on the other side of the wooden portal that separated me from the Magpie. Thankfully, the door held.
?Zis isn?t over? Said the bird, having mastered the English language and correctly assumed that deep and awkward European accents are inredibly scary. ?I vill break down zis place vall by vall, and zen I vil bring zuch a horror upon you and zis pathetic hovel zat all ze vorld will beg for mercy? it hissed ?Prepare yourzelf for death, vilthy pig?. And then, with a final flaming dragon punch, it flew straight upwards and burst through my roof.
Sitting on the toilet, thankful that I had somewhere to release what can only be described ?Chunky Fear?, I thought on how I was about to die. Is this how The Ultra Joe ends? Cowering in his toilet, like so many lonely Friday nights before? I felt icy terror drip down my neck, and I looked upwards for guidance. ?Help me God, what do I do?? I pleaded with the pot-plant hanging from my ceiling. Silence was the stern reply, and I cast my eyes downwards in hopelessness.
I pulled out my wallet and looked at the picture that was in there. It was so far away from the filthy coward who now sat on this filthy crapper. In the picture I was still on the toilet, but there I was smiling, and the bowl was clean, and my pants were actually down around my ankles. It is one of my most cherished images. It was then, galvanised by a flood of warmth filling my heart and running down my legs that I decided that this was not how it ends. This is not how The Ultrajoe Joe, Son Of Vikings, DIES!
Viking Santa, you sit on his lap and he threatens you with a club
I leapt out through the door just as an RPG blew through the wall of the toilet. Landing on my feet, I tore around the corner, searching for a weapon and feeling the heat from the flames roll across my back. My hand closed on a golf club, and I hefted the heavy weight as I tumbled out onto the lawn. The Bird was before me, sitting in a tree with an assortment of firearms and blades. It smirked, the skull it had gotten tattooed on its beak had my name written on it. We locked eyes, and it saw that I held no fear.
I charged.
Bullets thudded around me from the chain-gun of my foe, his mad caws sounding over the roaring of those glowing barrels. I deflected a thrown hatchet with my club, rolling under an electrified Glaive as it spun through the air towards me. Filled with ancient Viking rage I raised my Five-Iron high, and with the sound of thunder I brought it down upon my foe. Clang. His sword moved like lightning, stopping the blow and turning my mighty wrath aside. ?Zo, zis iz ?ow it endz? sneered the bird, twirling his sword ?I zhall take much pleazure in killing you?
I reached out my hand, feeling for the broken haft of my weapon. My fingers closed on metal and I spat at my tormentor, swinging the unknown object madly, I bellowed out the chorus to ?Money Money Money?, the first song that came into my head. In the context, standing before this monochromatic Satan, it was like any amount of electric guitar. A look of surprise crossed his face as the... oh fuck, it?s a goddamn gardening fork, as the gardening fork closed on him. Though the weapon was small and impotent, what I did with it mattered, and his mighty runeblade was knocked from his feathers.
?I warn you, bird, I took up Karate about six weeks ago and can vaguely remember some of it? I said, honouring the sacred and stupid tradition of my discipline by giving away any surprise advantage I may have had. The Magpie raised its wings, falling into the perfect ?Falling Star? stance, a stance used primarily for driving a man?s head down through his ribs and into his stomach. I fell into ?Basic Stance 1?, a stance designed to stop my idiot ass from falling over while I tried to kick a foam target. I then fell over.
The bird, who was halfway through the ?Infinite Hellfire? spinning kick attack (Seen in such games as ?Final Fantasy? and ?Devil May Cry? under different names) flew over me in surprise, allowing me to flee into the garden shed.
?Covard!? The bird howled, only to be surprised as I came screaming back out of the shed. In my hands were a hedge trimmer and a whipper-snipper, and fashioned on my face was a horned helm hade from an old cricket batters mask and lawnmower blades. I wore my old soccer shin-guards as gauntlets, and hastily butchered fertilizer sacking swirled behind me as a cloak.
?DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW?? I thundered, reasoning that if it the Eurovision Wonders had made Odin smile on me once they might do so again. With a roar, my implements of horticultural perfection hummed to life. The spinning blades and cutting cord of my weapons seeking blood, death and a perfect trim on the greenery. The bird salvaged a claymore from the debris of our battle, and flapped to meet me.
It began to rain, the very sky knowing this was a battle for the ages.
Spring in Australia is magpie season, when a small minority of breeding magpies (almost always males) around the country become aggressive and swoop and attack those who approach. - WIkipedia
Steel met steel over and over again, buzzing death whirring past flashing beak. Lightning crackled on the clothesline as we passed, ripping up the earth with our fury and playing merry hell with the strawberry patch. A lucky swing from his mighty blade cut open my back, and I ruined his tail-feathers with a screaming riposte from the Hedge trimmer. Fighting dirty, we traded punches and kicks to the face as we danced the dance of death. We did not speak; the time for words was over. Our dirge was sung in the clash of metal the parting of flesh.
?Don?t try it, Bird? I said, in defiance of my previous paragraph.
?You undereztimate my power? Said the bird, leaping over me. I swung upwards, eager to leave him dying here beside this river of Lava, but it turns out I had underestimated his power: He could fly. He landed behind me and stabbed me in the back with a horrible tearing sound. And while I could hear the rush of blood and the pouring rain, the only noise the bird made was a quiet chuckle as I fell to my knees in defeat. Ouch.
?Ouch? I said, fingering the tip of the blade that stabbed out of my chest. The heat from the flowing magma masked the greater half of the pain, but it still really fucking hurt. Like, worse than getting your fingers stuck in the VCR slot your friends told you they once lost a diamond ring in, the bastards. My mighty helm fell from my head, and I saw the bird hop menacingly to stare at my face.
The bird stood over me, twirling his moustache between his fingers, laughing madly.
?Stop right there? Squeaked a voice of thunder and power. I looked, and beheld a miniature Hercules leap from the wings with his massive axe borne high. The Bird conjured a fireball, but ever since the Bladestorm talent it was all over for clothies who didn?t stack resilience. Bigstuffxxx, gnome and gentlemen lover to my Night Elf wench, had arrived to save me. He turned and wink, causing a flutter of adoration to blossom within my heart as the Magpie-Communist was destroyed in the flashing steel and pint-sized sexuality. In that moment, I knew he owned my heart forever. After the bird was defeated and I won a roll on some new Spellpower shoes, he used a bandage to heal my wounds.
We locked eyes, and then kissed and he stroked my long purple ears as he had so many times, long ago, under the Stormwind bridge, before we rode off into the sunset on his Grand Black War Mammoth.
The end.
